Where to buy MOTS-c Peptide: sizes, price per mg and how to verify the lot

What "mots-c peptide" names, and what it does not

MOTS-c stands for mitochondrial open reading frame of the 12S rRNA type-c. It is a sixteen-residue peptide, Met-Arg-Trp-Gln-Glu-Met-Gly-Tyr-Ile-Phe-Tyr-Pro-Arg-Lys-Leu-Arg, whose sequence is written in mitochondrial DNA rather than in the nucleus; the 2015 paper cited at the foot of this page is where it was named. The "(Human)" in the catalogue name matters: the mouse and rat sequences differ, and a certificate should confirm the human one. Formula C101H152N28O22S2, average mass 2,174.6 Da. Listings write MOTS-c, mots c peptide and MOTS-c human; one molecule if the sequence is the human one.

Two methionines, at positions 1 and 6, are what make this peptide easy to get wrong and easy to check. Methionine oxidises to the sulfoxide, adding 16 Da per residue, so a MOTS-c lot can carry peaks at +16 and +32 Da, and a certificate that shows the main peak at 2,173.1 Da monoisotopic with small named sulfoxide peaks beside it is showing a real lot ageing honestly. A certificate with a single rounded mass and no mention of oxidation on a two-methionine peptide has either a very fresh lot or a laboratory that did not look.

The field is young enough that its explanations change between papers, and the research cited below is cell and animal work; nothing here describes any use. What a buyer can act on is a defined sequence, an exact mass, two oxidisable residues that a chromatogram can see, and a laboratory that says which species' sequence it confirmed.

The reference point for identity is public. PubChem lists MOTS-c as CID 146675088 with molecular formula C101H152N28O22S2, an average molecular weight of 2174.6 Da and a monoisotopic mass of 2173.108 Da. Those are the numbers a mass spectrometer is checked against, and the number a certificate must print beside the observed mass.

In plain terms: A 16-building-block peptide whose recipe is written in mitochondrial DNA. No approved product and no official standard. The field is young enough that the explanations change between papers, so a claim resting on a single study should be read as provisional.

MOTS-c (Human) for sale: sizes and price per mg

LabFirst lists MOTS-c (Human) in 3 sizes (10mg, 20mg, 40mg) from $60 to $100, priced per vial with the per-mg figure beside it so sizes can be compared without arithmetic. Per mg, the 40mg vial is the cheapest at $2.50 and the 10mg the dearest at $6, which is the usual shape: the vial, stopper, seal, fill and laboratory run cost the same whatever mass goes in.

The volume tiers are per size, not per basket: ten vials of one size take 10% off that line and twenty take 15%, and mixed sizes do not combine. Shipping is a flat $15 on orders under $200 and free from $200, within the United States only, with same-day dispatch on orders placed before 12 PM Pacific on a business day. The cost per mg tool runs the same comparison across any two listings, ours or anyone else's.

Sixteen residues with two methionines and a tryptophan is a moderately priced synthesis that needs careful handling to keep the methionines reduced, and MOTS-c sits in the middle of the catalogue per milligram. LabFirst lists 10, 20 and 40 mg vials and the per-milligram figure falls across them for the usual reason, the vial, the fill and the laboratory run being fixed costs spread over more mass. A laboratory qualifying a lot buys the 10 mg vial once and reads its certificate for the sulfoxide peaks before buying larger.

The price signal is the oxidation. A lot that was handled carelessly, or is old, carries more sulfoxide, and sellers clear such lots with discounts that look generous until the chromatogram is read. A steady price from a seller whose lots are tested outside, with the sulfoxide peaks named, is worth more than a markdown from one whose are not. The only discounts on this page are the volume tiers, per size and unchanged month to month, and the lot on the vial is whatever the certificate index says on the day.

The certificate a MOTS-c (Human) lot must carry

Three tests answer three different questions, and a certificate of analysis for MOTS-c (Human) is only complete when it carries all three for the exact lot on the vial. Identity is settled by mass spectrometry, and the number to look for on a MOTS-c (Human) certificate is 2173.108 Da monoisotopic (or 2174.6 Da average, if the laboratory reports the deconvoluted average mass). The observed mass should sit within the instrument's stated tolerance of that figure, and the certificate should print both the theoretical and the observed value, not just a tick.

Purity is a separate question, answered by HPLC: how much of what came off the column was the compound. The figure is only interpretable with its method beside it (column, gradient, detection wavelength) and a date, which is what ICH Q2(R2) means when it asks that an analytical procedure be shown fit for its purpose. A percentage with no method and no date is a number somebody typed, and a certificate that carries every test but for a different lot number than the vial is the most common failure of all and the easiest to catch. Net content is the third test and the one most often missing: the milligrams of MOTS-c (Human) actually in the vial, measured, against the size printed on the label.

Identity is the observed mass against 2,173.108 Da monoisotopic for the human sequence (2,174.6 Da average), seen in electrospray as the doubly charged ion near m/z 1,087.6 and the triply charged near 725.4, deconvoluted to one value on the certificate. Peaks at +16 and +32 Da are the mono- and di-sulfoxide, honest at a fraction of a percent and a problem as the main peak. A mass that does not match the human value at all may be the mouse or rat sequence, which some factories synthesise from the wrong database entry; a certificate that names the species has closed that question.

Purity by HPLC should show the chromatogram with its column, gradient and wavelength, because the sulfoxide forms elute slightly earlier than the parent and are the impurities that matter here. Net content is the third line: MOTS-c is supplied as an acetate or trifluoroacetate salt, and with three arginines and a lysine it holds a fair amount of counter-ion, so the gap between milligrams of powder and milligrams of peptide is larger than for a neutral sequence. Quantitative HPLC against a standard or amino acid analysis tells you which the label counts; the counter-ion belongs beside that figure.

Where to buy MOTS-c (Human): five checks before you order from anyone

Every seller of mots-c peptide says "third-party tested". The phrase costs nothing. These five checks take about four minutes per listing and separate a tested lot from a tested-sounding one.

1. The lot on the vial is the lot on the certificate. Read the printed lot number, then open the certificate and match it. A certificate for "MOTS-c (Human)" with no lot, or a lot that does not match, describes some other vial.
2. The laboratory is named and has its own lookup. The report should come from a laboratory the seller does not own, with a search code you can enter on the laboratory's own site. LabFirst lots are tested by Freedom Diagnostics and looked up by accession number; anything that can only be verified on the seller's own page has not been verified.
3. The theoretical mass is printed, and it is the right one. For MOTS-c (Human) that is 2173.108 Da monoisotopic; a certificate that prints a different figure has either measured a different molecule or copied a template.
4. Purity has a method and a date. An HPLC percentage should name the method and the run date. A figure that reads "99%+" with neither, or one date reused across every product a seller lists, is decoration.
5. Net content is stated in milligrams. The label size is a claim; the certificate's net content is the measurement. If the certificate has no net content line, the purity figure describes the powder, not the vial, and the price per mg you calculated is fiction.

How listings for MOTS-c (Human) specifically mislead:

• "MOTS-c" with no species. The human sequence is what the catalogue and the literature mean; a lot made from a mouse or rat entry has a different mass and a certificate that names the species settles it.
• A single rounded mass with no mention of oxidation. Two methionines mean sulfoxide peaks at +16 and +32 Da are expected; a certificate that never sees them may never have looked.
• A generous discount on an unnamed lot. Oxidised MOTS-c is what gets discounted; the chromatogram, not the price, says whether the lot is worth having.
• "Pharmaceutical grade MOTS-c". There is no USP monograph and no approved product; the FDA placed MOTS-C in Category 2 of its 503A list in September 2023, so no pharmacy may compound it.

How to verify a LabFirst MOTS-c (Human) lot

The MOTS-c (Human) sizes in stock today carry lots LF-2608-18 and PO-1001-MS40. Lot LF-2608-18 is at Freedom Diagnostics on accession FD-2026-05716 for identity, purity and net content. Until the report is attached the product page says "pending verification" against that lot and makes no purity claim; the price stands and the report goes live the day it arrives, on the page, at /coa/, and inside the receipt and packing slip for every order of that lot.

Verification runs through the laboratory, not through us. Open the certificate index, find the lot, and use the accession number on the Freedom Diagnostics lookup page; the report you see there is the laboratory's copy, not ours. Each lot also carries a Finnrick verify link, and every receipt and packing slip states that a customer may submit a sealed vial to Finnrick's free testing programme with the order as proof of purchase, so the brand's public record is built from vials we did not choose.

The product page reads the live stock feed on load (stock, lot and certificate state for every size), so what you see when you order is what ships. The lot is printed on the label and encoded in the QR patch on its right-hand side; scanning it opens that lot's record.

Storage and shipping for MOTS-c (Human)

Methionine is the storage story. Oxidation to the sulfoxide is slow in the sealed dry cake at 2 to 8 C out of light, and fast in solution exposed to air and light, so a prepared MOTS-c solution is dated, kept cold, kept dark, and used inside the laboratory's own stability record rather than any figure on a label. The tryptophan at position 3 adds a second reason to keep solutions out of light. The dry cake's other enemy is water drawn from humid air once the vial is opened; open a vial once, for its purpose, and never re-seal one for storage, because a cake that has absorbed moisture both weighs wrong and oxidises faster.

Orders ship within the United States, flat $15 under $200 and free above it, same day when placed before 12 PM Pacific on a business day, and the shipping page states the cutoff, the carriers and what is and is not promised.

The record a laboratory keeps on arrival is what makes the certificate usable later, and it is short:

• the lot number as printed on the vial, and the certificate's accession or search code beside it;
• the date received and the condition of the seal;
• the storage location and temperature it went into;
• the number of vials, and later the date each one was opened and by whom.

A MOTS-c (Human) vial with that record behind it can be traced from the bench to the laboratory report in one step; without it, the certificate is a document about a vial that can no longer be identified.

Regulatory status, and what this page is not

No approved medicine contains MOTS-c and no USP or Ph. Eur. monograph defines an acceptable lot. In September 2023 the FDA placed MOTS-C in Category 2 of its interim list of bulk drug substances nominated for compounding under section 503A, the category for substances it has identified as raising significant safety risks, which bars licensed pharmacies from compounding with it. That listing concerns pharmacies, not laboratory material, and is quoted because "pharmacy grade" appears in listings for a substance no pharmacy may currently compound.

FOR LABORATORY AND IN-VITRO RESEARCH USE ONLY. NOT FOR HUMAN OR ANIMAL CONSUMPTION. LabFirst sells MOTS-c (Human) to laboratories and researchers as material for in-vitro work, gives no guidance on use, and ships only against that understanding. Nothing on this page or on the product page describes preparing or administering anything.

Common questions

Sources

• PubChem, MOTS-c, CID 146675088. Public record for the molecular formula (C101H152N28O22S2), average molecular weight (2174.6 Da) and monoisotopic mass (2173.108 Da) quoted here as the identity reference.
• Lee and colleagues, The Mitochondrial-Derived Peptide MOTS-c Promotes Metabolic Homeostasis and Reduces Obesity and Insulin Resistance, Cell Metabolism 2015. Primary description of the compound in the literature; supports the class and naming stated here, not any use.
• Kim and colleagues, The Mitochondrial-Encoded Peptide MOTS-c Translocates to the Nucleus to Regulate Nuclear Gene Expression, Cell Metabolism 2018. Primary description of the compound in the literature; supports the class and naming stated here, not any use.
• Mitochondria-derived peptide MOTS-c: effects and mechanisms related to stress, metabolism and aging, Journal of Translational Medicine 2023. Primary description of the compound in the literature; supports the class and naming stated here, not any use.
• Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding, 503A Categories Update, 29 September 2023 2023-09-29. Lists the substances the FDA moved to Category 2 on that date, including MOTS-C.
• ICH Q2(R2), Validation of Analytical Procedures (2023) 2023-11. Why a purity figure is only interpretable with its method, and what "fit for purpose" means for the HPLC and mass spectrometry results a certificate reports.
• Freedom Diagnostics, certificate lookup by accession number. The laboratory-side lookup a LabFirst lot is verified on; the report there is the laboratory copy, not ours.
• Finnrick, verify a vendor or lot. Independent verification page linked from every LabFirst lot; customers may submit sealed vials with their order as proof of purchase.